


In Spirit of the Season

by fluffernutter8



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Kid Fic, a little depressing?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 02:50:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17195093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffernutter8/pseuds/fluffernutter8
Summary: Over a decade after the war, Peggy reflects on Christmases past and present, and potentially future.





	In Spirit of the Season

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as a Secret Santa thing, but there was a lot of kid stuff and also it's a bit of a bummer, so now it'll just be part of the post holiday haze.

Steve, Peggy finds, has very specific ideas about Christmas tradition, and she’s not entirely certain where he got them from.

Peggy herself is a bit less accustomed to true Christmas spirit. While her childhood holidays might not have been large - just herself, her parents, and her brother after her cousins moved away - they had been full of joy and cheer, all the familiar songs and gifts and food and anticipation wrapped up just right. But as she’d grown older, it had been communicated through disapproving looks and carefully worded comments that, while her enjoyment was expected, too much of it was unseemly. And, damnably, she had listened, tempering her own excitement as if by behaving as required she would earn extra credit.

Despite the unyielding face she’d put forward for her fellow soldiers, knowing how weakness or even simple emotion could be twisted when it was coming from a woman, she did not think that anyone would have begrudged her some happiness in the holiday season. But battlefields and the thought of all that could happen between this Christmas and the next hadn’t been conducive to any real festivities on her part. There was some singing, certainly, rationed treats and a small tree one year, but not exactly the stuff of her fondest memories.

The dreary pain of Christmases after the war was only highlighted by the way she had let herself hope, for a little while, that things might be different. The thoughts that she’d had, of herself and Steve curled together somewhere, celebrating, made the years following her move to New York and then to Los Angeles so much worse. It wasn’t truly bad: she accepted an invitation to the boisterous Martinelli family Christmas one year, and spent some nice time with Howard and the Jarvises the next, and a particularly thorny operation at work meant that she wouldn’t have been able to keep any plans the year after that. But these Christmases weren’t hers in the way she had once allowed herself to want in a corner of her mind. There wasn’t the anticipation and comfort of traditions that she had helped to build and keep. There wasn’t a home for her in those holidays.

The year she became engaged to Daniel, she hoped that things would be different. He spent the weeks leading up to their trip to New Jersey explaining the full family tree and reminiscing about past holidays, and the flutter of excited anxiety that she felt as their cab pulled up to the Sousa house was, she presumed, just right. She was a bride-to-be seeking to make a good impression on this first of many Christmases.

Daniel’s brothers didn’t like her. His parents didn’t either, particularly, but they were less vocal about it, murmuring quiet puzzlement about her focus on her work and rudimentary homemaking skills. But Marco and Eric couched their disdain for these qualities in braying jokes, teasing Daniel about who was the man of the house when he told them to knock it off. Finally she decided that polite forbearance was not an option and began to make it apparent just how unamused and unimpressed she was by them, even knowing that she would have to see them at the wedding and all future holidays and family gatherings. Daniel sighed and buried his face in his plate as things grew tense and then embarrassing. 

The Sousas treated her cordially enough after that, but it was clear, even as she helped to mix drinks or assist her nieces and nephews with their snow-gear or place the presents she and Daniel had brought beneath the tree, that she would never be fully accepted. That Caroline, Marco’s wife, and Donna, Eric’s, spoke to her with polite coldness probably saddened her most; it would have been nice to have sisters. So it was something of a relief - for everyone involved, she suspected - that the following Christmas found her so close to her due date that staying at home in Washington was not only acceptable but nearly expected.

It was the first time that she was truly thankful for the pregnancy. She certainly hadn’t been coerced into it. (Peggy was stubborn and she was resourceful and, to put it bluntly, if she didn’t want to be pregnant, she would not be.) And she wasn’t unprepared either: she had attentively read both the book passed on by her obstetrician, and the one highly recommended by the woman in the shop. She had only thought that she would be feeling something more by this point, some sort of happy, homey anticipation. Daniel was doing splendidly, speaking to her belly and eagerly asking if he could feel the kicking and pulling out the baby name book he had borrowed from the public library as she was trying to eat the supper he had left warming for her. But somehow even as her body did its work so perfectly, her mind would not fall into synch. January, for her, still meant the latest round of nuclear testing results rather than new motherhood, and the first thing that came to mind when she thought about the imminence of her labor was the muddle that her maternity leave was going to make of things.

But the first time she held her daughter something did fall into place. Ruth was fussy and excitable and barely more than bald, and Peggy loved her anyway, a softening in her chest when she looked at the tiny form, an overwhelming sharpness at the idea that she might one day be hurt by anything. Still, there was only a hint of regret when the time came for her to return to work. At least at her office demands were typically made in words rather than unceasing and unspecified sobs. And there were problems to solve, and having Peggy solving them would keep the world safer for Ruth.

They had engaged a nurse, and Daniel had taken a more standard job, putting his detective’s mind to work on racketeering cases for the FBI, so he was typically home first. That the system worked well enough for them did not seem appreciated by Daniel’s family when they saw them again the following Christmas. “Nanny Danny” seemed to be the preferred new nickname from his brothers, and if Peggy felt slightly guilty about using Ruth’s cries to nurse as an escape, it was tempered by the observation that the Sousa brothers got along better when she was not around.

By the next year, however, the situation had become somewhat reversed. Peggy dreaded it from the beginning of December and mustered herself all through the drive north, waiting for the latest in snide remarks from her in-laws. Somehow, though, the novelty had worn off, and it would have been a somewhat decent Christmas except that the novelty had worn off for Daniel as well. As Ruth’s second birthday drew closer and Peggy was still working long hours and taking sudden trips which she couldn’t talk about, it seemed to be sinking in that there was no familial revelation in the offing. When she said that she would be keeping her job, she meant it, and her heart wasn’t tenderly stricken as she left her daughter behind being fed strained peas by a nanny or came home to find her husband alone once more with a book, or at least not stricken enough for her to give up her position. 

(That Peggy was very newly pregnant again did not help matters. Oh, no one knew, not even Daniel, so there was no need to worry about renewed criticism or serious talks about “reevaluating things.” It was only that the smell of gingerbread, which had become perhaps her favorite thing about Christmas with the Sousas, was nauseating her this year, and her breasts were growing increasingly tender, making the sweater with which her sister-in-law Donna had gifted her absolute murder to wear.)

By the time they returned again, now with two small children in tow, Peggy thought that she had gained an appropriate familiarity with the outline of a Sousa family Christmas. Daniel’s father would fall asleep at the lengthy Midnight Mass and would have to be subtly pinched awake while Father Montez eyed them. Some side dish would inevitably be burned or forgotten on the counter at every meal, cueing the family’s insistent and required reassurance that there was absolutely too much wonderful food anyway. Some child or another would play too enthusiastically and nearly knock over the tree, or would have a tantrum at not receiving the gift they wanted, and everyone would have to speak a touch louder and pretend not to hear as their parents berated them in the next room. Ruth and even baby Henry behaved themselves well enough - in fact, if Peggy was put to it, she would rate them as the superior cousins. And despite the tart courteousness with which she and Daniel addressed each other these days (things between them were not improving; she had returned from a trip to Mexico City two weeks before to find him sitting up for her in his robe, informing her acidly that Henry had had an ear infection while she was away, as if her presence would have forestalled such a thing) she thought that perhaps they had finally settled into a routine, however unpleasant.

That it was to be her last Christmas with them did not occur to her at the time. But indeed, by the next year she and Daniel had signed the divorce papers and the customary trip up to New Jersey was taken only by he and the children. Peggy, for her part, went to Howard’s house in New York and the two of them polished off several of his better bottles of liquor.

She was working the next Christmas, glad to be able to sound magnanimous as she told Daniel that she had thought it would be nice for the children to be able to spend the holiday with family, especially when they saw their cousins so infrequently. As the time approached the following year, though, she began to consider whether she should arrange to have the children with her for the first time, or invite herself to Howard’s again, or perhaps do nothing. But all her planning was put to a halt by a call from Howard himself.

Daniel and the kids did end up with his parents again that year. Peggy spent the day picking through a terrible approximation of Christmas ham with Steve in the cafeteria of the facility where he had been defrosted. He had not been cleared for release quite yet.

“Not exactly how I’d hoped our first Christmas together would go,” he said to her, poking awkwardly at the cloud of mashed substance that she suspected had not begun as potatoes, or even a near cousin.

Peggy gestured to the single garland which had been strung up above the entryway. “I think it’s rather charming, actually, the effort they’ve put in,” she told him, and it made him smile.

Steve smiled a lot during those first months. Smiled when she gave him a tour of her small, functional apartment, smiled as he asked her about the souvenirs that she had quietly displayed. Smiled upon seeing pictures of her children, and smiled larger and more nervously during their first meeting in person. Ruth, seven by that time, looked at him with suspicion until he bought her an ice cream and solemnly informed her that he hadn’t been to the zoo in a very long time and she would have to be his tour guide. Henry fell asleep in his arms by the end of the outing, seemingly signalling his approval, and that made him smile as well.

But as the months wore on, as Steve acclimated to a new decade, a new political climate, and the relationship that they had so effortlessly fallen into, his smile faded.

“I think I see your kids more than you do,” he commented as they spent a rare night reading in bed together.

“I’m sorry that you had to take over with them last weekend,” she said, turning a page. “But you know how things come up, and I absolutely shudder to think how they would have handled it without me.”

He worried a corner of a page, which was unusual for him. He still sourced most of his reading material from the public library, not even yielding to the dime store novels as she did, and kept them in good condition. “I love spending time with the kids. But something’s always coming up.”

Peggy made sure to keep her eyes moving across the page; her book was formulaic enough that she likely wasn’t missing anything as she spent more of her energies on pretending to be unbothered rather than actually taking in the words. “I’ll be sure to put aside our next weekend on my calendar so the children and I will have some quality time together.”

But two weeks later - Daniel, his work schedule more regular and a housekeeper already established for helping with tidying, dinner preparation, and watching the children in the early afternoons and unscheduled evenings, had custody during the weeks, and she had deemed alternating weekends suitable - a telephone call came just as they were all heading over to the pictures.

“I’m so sorry, my darlings, it’s only that this is tremendously important. I wouldn’t leave otherwise.” She bent to hug them and kiss their cheeks, then kissed Steve’s as well, even as he cut his eyes toward her.

“I guess we’ll have to go watch Cary Grant without you,” Steve said, and the children only heard the teasing of his words, laughing and taking his hands as they split up on the street. Peggy, walking at a clip toward the car around the corner, put out of her mind the fire in his eyes and the inevitable argument that was brewing.

He delayed until the children were back with Daniel the next evening; that her neighbors remain undisturbed didn’t seem to trouble him overly. Although, in truth, she did a good bit of her own shouting.

“I don’t know how you can be so against my working when your own mother did it as well!”

“I don’t think you need to quit working! But since you bring it up, my mother worked so we could have heat and food. I’m glad that your kids don’t have the same worries! Do you think that my ma wouldn’t have stopped working if she could?”

“Well, perhaps I enjoy my work more than she did.”

“Maybe you do.” She hadn’t seen him look so tired since the first days after he had been defrosted. “But I think it’s more that you think you’re the only one who can do anything, so you’re trying to do everything.”

“Would you say this to Howard? Or to Director Hoover?” she said icily. It was a practiced line. She had used it on Daniel during their arguments, knowing that it would make him look away.

“To Director Hoover, I think I would have other things to say. And I have said it to Howard.” He sat on the sofa, hunched with his forearms on his knees. That she had managed to weary him was a strange and bitter victory. “It’s not about making you stop doing what you love,” he said. “I just wanted to remind you that you only have the one life to love everything in.”

She told him to leave. He didn’t protest, even though she knew that he did not have much saved from the contract work he did for SHIELD (maintained mostly, she thought, so he could have clearance enough to talk about her work in specific) and the occasional drawing of comics when jobs were offered to him. He knew few people in Washington, and there certainly wasn’t a quiet, empty apartment waiting for him somewhere else. That they would move in together had not even been a discussion after he had been discovered; they had traveled from the SHIELD facility directly to her apartment, both unwilling to waste more time. Now Steve packed his things into one suitcase and left to somewhere unknown.

She could still remember the vivid feeling of their arms pressed together in the backseat of the taxi on their way home that first day, plenty of room on either side of them. She could still remember smiling at Steve across the seat as he had stumbled over his words on the way to receive the serum which was to change all of their lives.

Daniel called her office the next week to ask about Christmas; it was only a formality now. The children had known no other Christmas than those at their grandparents’ New Jersey house, and Peggy was certainly not in a position to offer a suitable alternative.

Somewhere, Christmas Eve joyfully took place, but for Peggy, it was barely noticed. She stayed at her office until late, as usual. There were a few reports from undercover assets to review, but most of it was only typical paperwork. When she finally arrived at home, she took off her shoes, took down her hair, and made herself a martini. She took her drink and her book and sat on her sofa.

The sob took her by surprise, hard and pained. The second, now clearly no fluke, was worse.

She pressed her martini glass to her forehead and mastered herself. But even without further evidence, it was clear that something was happening.

The room was still and silent around her, undecorated. She couldn’t remember the last time she had had a Christmas tree. She checked her watch; it was nearly Christmas Day. She thought of her children, likely snugged in Daniel’s childhood bedroom at the parental Sousas, and suddenly she missed them with a gasp and a tremble. She wanted to creep over and pull the covers up over their small shoulders. She wanted to smell the sweet, girlish scent of Ruth’s hair. Ruth, who liked dolls and playing house in a way Peggy had eschewed, who had all of her mother’s stubbornness, and was smart enough to have undetectable hair-pulling as her preferred method of retaliation against anyone she felt was being mean. She wanted Henry’s round, solid weight against her, wanted to watch him reading - he had struggled with it for longer than Ruth, but now he just gobbled his way through books; how long had it been since she’d seen his latest favorite? - and listen to his carefully considered analysis of the upcoming baseball season.

And Steve… 

She had been so determined to prove herself to the world, to show that women could be successful in jobs like hers, to show that she could be powerful, that she’d forgotten that molding herself to be a certain way only showed that the power was not hers. She loved her work, yes, loved the challenge of it and the opportunity to use her skills, but she loved other things too. How long had it been since she went to visit Angie or to see one of her shows? When was the last time she had sat down for a meal with the Jarvises, to eat their delicious food and hear their jokes and smile at them being so in love? These days she did not get her nails done because she liked the idea of experimenting with different colors or because she deserved a bit of a treat, only because the precision of how she looked was a part of her arsenal, a carefully curated way to intimidate. 

Had she and Steve ever gone dancing?

She looked around at her...well, “home” was putting it a bit strongly. It was a dark sort place where she slept and kept her old things, and sometimes hosted the children. The main bit of personality came from the souvenirs she had collected from cities where she had officially been. She had started the practice when Ruth was a baby, intending to use them to excite the little girl, to lead her on a simulated tour of the world which she too could someday conquer. But the plan had been abandoned long ago. She would absently add the small mementoes to her suitcase and unpack them when she came home, but if her children even noticed them, it was on their own and without mention to her.

Her children, she realized suddenly, still shared twin beds in the small room that served as theirs or a theoretical guest’s.

She picked up the telephone and dialed before she could think better of it. The lateness of the hour came to mind - it was just passing two in the morning - and just as quickly left. Considering the timing of Midnight Mass, she had actually scheduled well.

When a woman answered, sounding vaguely alarmed, Peggy kept her voice calmly, politely businesslike as she made her request. The woman acquiesced, though at this point she sounded only somewhat suspicious.

“Hello,” Steve said, and she took a drink instinctively. It was no longer cold, but it was at least a little bit fortifying. She had not heard his voice in weeks, not since he had left - since she had made him leave. She had known that he had ended up at the Barnes family home since the moment he arrived, and had memorized their telephone number later that day, but to actually hear him was different.

“Hello,” she said in return. “Hello,” and then she plunged in. “I’m going to buy a house. It will be near Daniel’s neighborhood, close to the school and to the children’s friends, but not actually in the neighborhood - sharing a butcher and a greengrocer and a laundry service is terribly awkward once you’ve been divorced. I think the house should have a yard, for running about and playing imaginary games and the potential for a dog. I don’t have any intention of actually getting a pet, but I think begging for them is almost a necessary part of an upbringing. Besides, although I might plan on delegating more, having a career isn’t really conducive to animals around the house. And more than all of that, I would truly—” She lost herself for a moment. “I would truly appreciate it if you would consider coming to live there with me. Actually, I would like to be married to you, if you found that agreeable. But if not, I believe that we at least have an engagement at the Stork Club for which I’ve kept you waiting far too long.”

In the pause, she imagined the forking lives before her. Yes, she would have the children and her chosen happiness either way, but the prospect of doing it without him felt like another occasion of pulling up her socks and making do. She could manage it, of course, but she would always be haunted by the emptiness. Perhaps she should make it clearer that the invitation was open-ended…

“Yes,” he said, low and craggy. “Yes, to all of it. Whether or not you get the dog.”

They were married in February. Peggy wore a fashionable, attractively cut suit in a shade of pale blue of which Angie had approved. Steve must have worn something, and he likely looked handsome, but on the day, all Peggy remembered seeing was the broad gasp of his smile. The occasion turned into a bit of a reunion for the two of them: though Steve had visited the Commandos, and Peggy saw Monty every once in a while through his work with MI5 and MI6, it was the first time in years that the lot of them had all been together. They raised a glass to Bucky together, his place empty by Steve’s side. In fact, they had agreed that the only attendants would be the children, both looking splendid in their formal clothes. Ruth kept an eagle eye on Henry during the reception, but even her elder sister stare could not prevent chocolate icing from smearing on his collar and cuffs.

They had invited Daniel (things were getting better between them, and it seemed only polite) but he chose to only come to pick up the little ones at the end of the evening. He and Steve shook hands when he arrived, and then Peggy took him over to the side to speak.

“You were right about some things,” she told him immediately. “Not about everything, and not the manner in which you expressed it, but you weren’t wrong, and I should have been a better listener.”

He looked past her to where Steve was smiling and listening attentively to Ruth while keeping a hold of Henry’s shoulders. The poor boy was listing rather badly but was too stubborn to fall fully asleep or to be picked up. “Well, maybe it wasn’t so much about me at all,” said Daniel. He kissed her cheek. “Good luck to the two of you.” And he went over to corral the exhausted children.

Steve and Peggy honeymooned for two weeks, and the workload when they returned was astronomical. Although Peggy had begun promoting and hiring a small group of trusted people to assist her, the force wasn’t fully staffed or trained yet. And besides, there would always be things which required her in particular. Still, she made sure to unbury herself for supper with her new husband, and on the weekends. She and Steve would see the children every weekend now, not every other or whenever she could make the time. Daniel had been hesitant to disrupt the routine of school and friends for now, but if things worked out, perhaps there could be some new arrangement devised.

In the summer, the children came to stay for nearly a month. Peggy and Steve’s new house did have a sprinkler and a large, interesting basement, proximity to the library, and a group of neighborhood children with whom Ruth and Henry soon became friends, but they were all glad to leave for two weeks at a rented house on the South Carolina coast. Their days there were taken up with swimming and lounging about, with eating mostly foods roasted over a fire, and enjoying each other’s company. Peggy saw herself in the way Ruth ran back into the surf even after she had gone under a wave and needed to be plucked out, saltwater streaming from her face and hair, by Steve. She loved the way Henry’s mind seemed always to be working; he asked her carefully considered questions in a serious voice at every opportunity.

Her work was still important, a point of pride, something that would help give her children a safer and better world, but getting a chance to know those children was precious too.

As Christmas approached, Peggy’s plans became clear earlier than ever before. As she brought the children back to Daniel’s house one Sunday evening, she decided that she would ask if she could have them stay with her for the holiday for the first time, only to have Daniel clear his throat awkwardly and ask tentatively if she would want them this year.

Steve, when she told him, was ecstatic. And it was then that she learned for the first time exactly how fondly Steve viewed Christmas, and his specific ideas regarding its celebration.

“You have to sing with us,” he says on the afternoon preceding Christmas Eve as he set out the box of carefully selected baubles - in glass, metal, and porcelain, all different patterns but none too garish - on the coffee table. He has already begun preparing food, and the aromas mingle wonderfully through the house.

“What precisely will we be singing?” she asks, spreading the boughs of their tree so that the fir can mix its scent in too.

Steve adds to the collection the wooden ornaments they’d decorated together with the children. Peggy thinks of the way that all of these decorations, currently so new, might someday be heirlooms, part of a tradition, and finds herself warmed. “You know, Silent Night, Deck the Halls. And we’ll have to sing Good King Wenceslas. My mother always said it was my special song.”

Peggy mentally reviews the number. “What do you— Oh, good grief. The Feast of Stephen. You must be joking.” But he just grins at her unrepentantly and goes into the kitchen for the bowls of cranberries and popcorn. “What else is necessary for Christmas according to you? Will we be sitting through Mass?”

“That’s up to you,” Steve says, suddenly serious. “Telling the Christmas story, going to a service - that’s part of how you choose to raise them.” Then he smiles again. “I will want to tell the story of Chanukah, though.”

“Whatever for?” Peggy asks, politely not mentioning that Steve is not in the least Jewish, and is in fact very Catholic. Well, she amends, remembering what they had gotten up to before they had been married, not very Catholic. “And besides, that ended last week.”

“In my neighborhood, if you weren’t Italian or Irish, you were probably Jewish. Mrs. Barnes liked to have people over to celebrate and she didn’t take no for an answer. The party for our block was for everyone, and that meant a little tweaking to make it work. Someone would light candles if it was one of the nights, but even if there wasn’t any overlap between the holidays, someone would tell the story. It ended up being one of my favorites.”

“Hmm.” She raises an eyebrow at him. “The small and righteous warriors overcoming the seemingly undefeatable evil. I really can’t see what would attract you to that.”

He blushes a bit at his obviousness and her dry tone. Her husband actually has a very lovely blush.

The telephone rings, and Peggy, the heavy silk of her belted green dress swinging around her calves, goes to answer it. She speaks with the caller briefly and then hangs up, returning to where Steve is shifting things on the mantelpiece to allow for whatever decorations the children choose to put there, along with the stockings.

“Was that Catrin?” he asks.

“She was just passing along a message,” Peggy says. “And reminding me once again that she’ll be happy to testify on my behalf in the new year.”

The realization that she had allowed things in both her work and personal life to be polluted by expectation had led Peggy to reevaluate her workplace entirely as well, and she had soon realized that she had not been involving nearly enough women at the upper levels. Although her new equitable policy was not written down anywhere or official in any way, the shift in management at SHIELD had not gone unnoticed. Women who were looking for government agency jobs beyond filing were hearing that SHIELD was the place to look. But she would also be called before a private senate committee session in a few weeks to discuss the rumors of discrimination against male applicants and employees. Catrin, who had flown Army transports during the war and would have ideally liked to be in the new space program if they had let her, had gotten a well-deserved promotion recently, and was only one of many who would have eagerly offered to support Peggy with the senators. But Peggy was already fairly expert at handling lawmakers, and also…

“Catrin’s not exactly politic in those kinds of situations,” Steve points out, then says, “Don’t say a word,” as she looks at him with raised eyebrows for his hypocrisy.

It’s nearing three o’clock, when the children are scheduled to arrive. As a finishing touch, Peggy builds a small fire in the grate. The temperature outside doesn’t truly warrant it, but the smell adds wonderfully to the seasonal combination already in the air, and the crackle provides the perfect backdrop.

Peggy steps back to take in the effect. Steve slips an arm around her waist and gazes around too. It all looks a little deshabille at the moment, not as she imagines it will once they’ve all taken part in the decorating, but there is a coziness to their home this way regardless. Steve’s sketchpad sits beside the basket of ornamental pine cones with which their neighbors had gifted them (necessitating the hasty purchase of a return present). The stockings will hang below the framed pictures on the mantel: herself and Steve at their wedding, and then a matching picture with Ruth and Henry; the four of them ice skating at Central Park when they had gone to visit Steve’s old neighborhood; the children sitting beside Peggy on the sofa, all three of them dressed up and smiling before some party of Howard’s. Henry has already informed Peggy which end table would be best for their cookies for Santa.

A knock comes on the door just as the egg timer rings in the kitchen. Steve glances around and then down at her. “I don’t have anything in the oven.”

She takes his hand. Her voice is matter-of-fact but quiet. “My mother always made us a Christmas pudding. I thought I would do my best to provide as well.”

His face is soft and alight with her. She knows that it isn’t just the settling dark and the shimmer of the fire. “I think we’re all going to love it.” He kisses her gently and when he pulls away, he’s grinning in that incorrigible way of his. “And we’ll eat it even if you messed it up.”

She pinches his ear briefly and then steps toward the entryway. “I always get it right in the end,” she tells him archly, and goes to let her children in from the cold.


End file.
